He would not explain what he was going to do. He merely
fetched Andrew, and put him in charge of Mrs. King, who brought him
every day to see her. And then he vanished. But she had no fears for
him. They had vanished; her sudden yielding to the chloroform in the
hospital had been symbolical of a deeper yielding; she felt that these
strong, wise forces of her life, if pain became unendurable, would
either cure it or find an anesthetic for it.
And one day, towards the end of the three months, Louis had come to the
nursing home to see her. His hands, as he seized her passionately, felt
hard and stuck to her thin silk blouse.
"Louis!" she cried, taking one of the hands in hers, which had grown
very soft and white, "I've seen them pretty bad before with the gorse.
But whatever have you been doing? Where have you been? They're like a
navvy's hands!"
"Were you worried about me, old girl?" he asked.
"No, but dreadfully curious," she began. He took a roll of dirty notes
out of his pocket and threw it in her lap.
"Look! Alone I did it! Monish, old girl! Filthy lucre! Just enough to
take us home. I meant to do it off my own bat, without asking your
uncle!"
"But how on earth could you, in the time?" she asked.
"Navvying! That bally railway cutting at Cook's Wall! Lord, Marcella, if
I don't get the Pater to pay for me to go to the hospital, I'll do a
year first on the music-halls as the modern Hercules.
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